Link juice is an important factor in SEO, as many search engines use it to determine how visible a web site or page is in search results. Link juice essentially refers to the increase in reputation one’s site receives based on links from external or internal sources. Both providing and receiving link juice is an important strategy for elevating the effectiveness of a web site’s SEO strategy, which often results in an increase of site impressions.
A social media presence and traditional advertising methods are popular avenues for attracting visitors to your site, but nothing has the potential for long-term success as much as high search engine rankings. Plenty of link juice is the primary factor in achieving this. While understanding the flow of link juice, the strategies below can help ensure the presence of both inbound and outbound links to boost link juice:
Recognize Effective Link Juicing Origins
The more respected a web site is that links to you, the better a search engine will perceive that link as symbolic of quality. This means that a low-ranking site that was published a week ago will have little, if any, bearing on a site’s link juice. Link juice is most effective when sites linking to you have the following characteristics:
- Quality content
- High PageRank
- Content relevant to your site
- Visible user-generated content
- Notable social media presence
- Keywords within content that are relevant to your own
If a site links to you and they possess several of the characteristics above, you can be sure that it will impact SEO and link juicing positively.
Also, Be Aware of Ineffective Link Juicing Origins
As mentioned, low-quality web sites linking to yours have little to no effect on your site’s amount of link juice. In fact, they can even have a negative impact on your overall SEO if they possess some or all of these characteristics, which are less obvious than the effective aspects:
- Irrelevant content
- The link pointing to your site is “nofollowed”
- The link is paid for, or involved in a link exchange scheme
- Page pointing to yours is not indexed in search results
- Page pointing to yours has too many other links
- Site is unranked, or lacks original content
Webmasters should avoid exchanging links or linking to sites with the above characteristics. These types of sites can even be a detriment to one’s SEO campaign.
Take Advantage of Your Site’s Footer
Especially compared to the header, sidebar and primary content, the footer is often overlooked by webmasters. Visitors aren’t as likely to ignore it, though. In addition to serving as a useful design choice that makes a site more navigable, webmasters can infuse target keywords into their footer by representing them as links.
For example, this roof repair website uses a footer to promote potentially lucrative keywords like “residential roofing” and “commercial roofing” and “siding.”As a result, those searching for roof repair options around the Baltimore area are more likely to stumble across this specific website. You company could use a similar strategy to make your site easier to find for those living in your area.
Link to Pre-Existing Content
Webmasters can boost the search visibility of their previous blog posts by linking to them within new blog posts. Just as sites linking to your site is a positive, using a keyword-relevant link to link back to one of your older pages will increase the likelihood that the older post will be associated by search engines with the keyword link in the newer post.
Additionally, linking to pre-existing content on new content can provide exposure to audiences, increasing the odds that a blogger within your niche will link to it. Webmasters should always perceive old content as alive and kicking with potential, as opposed to existing in a content graveyard. This strategy, along with the others above, will aid webmasters in using link juice to expand their recognition on search engines and the niche-relevant blogosphere.
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